M35-39: Tripathi takes San Francisco in 1:20:50

• Sarung Tripathi won M35-39 in 1:20:50 (6:10/mi), finishing 5th among all men — the fastest in a field of 582.
• Li Chieh Hsu (2nd, 1:22:51) and Phil Dumontet (3rd, 1:23:01) were separated by just 10 seconds at the line, with Dumontet's blistering late surge nearly closing the gap entirely.
• Dumontet posted the 4th-fastest men's split from mile 12 to the finish, moving from 21st to 12th among men in the closing stretch.
• Manuel Cardenas (5th, 1:28:14) ran the 21st-fastest men's split on the 9.6M→10.5M segment, climbing from 74th to 27th among men across the race — the biggest mover in the top 20.

Sarung Tripathi, 35, from San Francisco, put together a commanding performance on his home course, running 6:10/mi through 59°F and a stiff 14 mph wind off the Bay. His race wasn't perfectly linear — he slipped as far back as 11th among men before a decisive surge carried him all the way to 5th — but the finishing time of 1:20:50 left no doubt. He also posted the 9th-fastest men's split on the 2M→4M stretch, signaling he was building momentum early before making his definitive move.

Behind him, the battle for 2nd and 3rd was a genuine late-race drama. Li Chieh Hsu of Sunnyvale ran an aggressive middle section, posting the 3rd-fastest men's split from 9.6M to 10.5M and holding 3rd among men as late as that point. But Phil Dumontet, the 39-year-old from Longmont, CO, was quietly hunting him down. Dumontet's 4th-fastest men's split from mile 12 to the finish — the fastest closing segment of anyone in the top three — nearly swallowed Hsu whole. Ten seconds at the tape is close, but it was Dumontet doing the catching, not Hsu pulling away.

Benjamin Roach (4th, 1:23:51) also leaned on a strong close, logging the 11th-fastest men's split on the same 12M-to-finish stretch, while Cardenas's sustained charge through the middle miles — from 74th among men at the opening checkpoint all the way to 27th by the finish — stands as one of the more impressive sustained efforts in the M35-39 field. John Wedig (6th, 1:28:29) through Darren Flood (20th, 1:37:54) rounded out a deep top-20 across 582 finishers.